Answered Prayers

When the weather isn't verging on winter, Fall in Michigan is beautiful. Today was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was a little windy, and yet it was warm enough out that as long as you were wearing a jacket you were golden. For the first time in a couple weeks it's actually felt like it was fall and it was lovely.

It is looking to be a promising week.

This weekend was the His House Fall Retreat, and obviously since this is my first semester at MSU it was my first retreat... and it was amazing. This weekend, I mean, I'm not even sure what I thought this weekend was going to be but ultimately now I see it as an answer to some of my most recent prayers.

I have been struggling, and I've really been praying over those struggles lately. Saturday I decided to be baptized, and I didn't realize that that was the reason that God had me there until literally about an hour or so before. But now I can look at it and know that that was my reason for being there, that is why God wanted me there, why he wanted me here. I hadn't realized how much weight I was carrying around on my shoulders, until it was lifted away.

I can definitely tell that there is a difference in my general attitude over the last couple days. I just feel so much better, and it's simply amazing.

Saturday morning we split up and went to workshops, where we talked about our faith and knowing where we stood in our faith and ways to express that faith. During the first one that I attended the speaker talked about the four responses, one of which was baptism, and that first planted the idea in my head. I got to really thinking about where I was in my spiritual journey. It was a step that I hadn't taken and I started thinking about it.

The idea was there, but it was in the back of my mind rather in the forefront. The afternoon was spent initially playing frisbee golf with a group, but that quickly disintegrated into climbing trees, and just generally hanging out and walking around the woods.

Northern Michigan is gorgeous in the early fall, and the camp was right on Lake Ann. It was later in the evening after the last workshop and dinner that we were walking to Campus Time, when Felicia hesitantly brought up baptism, and I think that's when it finally clicked. I think that's when I realized that that was why God got me here, got me there. God was nudging me to solidify my commitment to him. I certainly relied on him a lot through me life, and especially the last few years.

So Saturday night, in front of five hundred people our Associate Pastor, Kevin, took my confession and my friend Felicia baptized me, and so much of the heaviness that has been weighing down on me lately melted away. I feel so fantastic right now, and I feel like that makes all the difference in the world as far as how I interact with everyone around me.

I feel more connected now, I'm not simply going through the motions, and the focus has become today rather than an eventual tomorrow. Of course there will be rough roads ahead, but today is great, and even when I struggle God will be there.

Road Trip

Today was a rather busy day.

At around noon Sarah and I drove up to the DTE Music Theater. Her parents wanted us to take a day and drive up there to prove that we could navigate our way there. At first it looked like we were going to have to take a parent along but in the end it was just the two us and an abundance of maps. It was really straight forward which was good. At any rate it was a good indicator of how much time we will have to allow for the drive on the actual concert date.

One thing the trip definitely highlighted was that summer is equivalent to construction season in Michigan. The drive, albeit beautiful, was fraught with construction. Thank god for ipods and and thereby commercial free music. It was a fun drive though.

Once we managed to make it to Clarkston we had lunch with another girl that lives up there, and by four we were back on the road again. Now, I am notorious for being able to navigate to a location and then somehow get all turned around on the drive home.

I'm perfectly aware that the drive home should be the easiest part of the trip, but for one reason or another it always turns out to be the trickiest part for me. Go figure.

About a half an hour into the trip home we realized that we were headed in the wrong direction and therefore had to turn around. After that small snag though it was a smooth ride aside from some heavy traffic around Ann Arbor.

I am now home, eating an English muffin and continuing to contemplate a way to deal with paying my tuition. Tomorrow I get to make the drive to MSU to talk with someone who will hopefully be able to help me solve my problem. Fingers crossed!

Attitudes and Moronic Behavior

My potentially irate customer came in today. Thankfully I had everything all set so that there wasn’t any hassle, and when I wasn’t certain about something I pretended to be. That’s all any of us really do anyway, pretend to be completely on top of things even though we are fully aware of how much we aren’t aware of. He was slightly shorter than me; obviously this explains his attitude problem…

The drive in to work this morning was absolutely beautiful. The drive home on the other hand left something to be desired, it was grimly raining.

Skipping right along, I saw three MORONS today. I was driving home and was nearly here when two of the three ran across the five lane road without paying any regard to the cars that were using it. Not only did they dart across the road without paying even the slightest caution, but it was raining and fairly dark even though it wasn’t that late in the evening.

Several cars were most definitely fairly close to hitting them, though thankfully there was no accident as a result of their utter stupidity. I didn’t see the third kid cross the street, though they were all obviously together because once I managed home and had parked in my driveway I saw the little hoodlums come over the fence.

It was the most ridiculous, and stupid thing that I’ve seen in a while. These kids were old enough to know better to. If these are the individuals of the future, then it’s a scary future to imagine.

Ah, Michigan

It’s finally stopped raining. The rain wouldn’t be quite so unwelcome, if it weren’t also so cold outside. It’s supposed to stay cold through Wednesday. In fact, on Wednesday there is some talk of a rain snow mix. Gross. I’m looking forward to Thursday when it’s supposed to get into the sixties and then the eighties on Friday. That is my kind of weather!

Ah, Michigan.

I’ve managed to get everything done for my philosophy class. At this point I’m just waiting for him to post the final exam. Seriously, I can’t wait for the day that I don’t even have to think about that class and the inane homework that comes with it. Good-bye and good riddance.

The last two days have been seriously productive though. Not only am I all caught up in philosophy, but I’m caught up in my Shakespeare class. I can finally start in on the final exam for that class as well as lend some focus to writing my final paper.

I have three more days of Abnormal Psych left and four more days of Algebra. I’m so looking forward to this summer, if only because it will mark the first time since the summer following senior year that all I’ll have to worry about is work.

Well I shouldn’t say that necessarily… once schools out that’ll free up my time more meaning that I’ll have more time to focus on the fact that I still haven’t heard anything from MSU. Seriously, what’s the deal? I’m curious, and really quite anxious to know the final verdict. I’d like to have some idea of what next fall holds.

I suppose I’ll have to wait and see, even if I am a bit tired of waiting…

Past, Present, Future

I love the sound of spring. It is wonderful wake up in the morning to sunlight streaming through the window and birds singing in the cool morning air. Spring is fantastic because it is the end of freezing to death every time you step out the front door.

Spring is a time of new beginnings, a chance to start over after the hellish ordeal that is a long and grueling Michigan winter. As majestic as a first snow may appear when view from inside a cozy house, I’m not sad to see it go.

The other lovely thing about spring, is that it is the prelude to summer which means that school is almost out. It’s not that I don’t enjoy school, but I’m ready for a break. I want some time to myself. I don’t want to worry anymore about squeezing in time for homework in-between work and actually attending classes.

What I really want is to sleep again. It’s easy to forget what it is like to really, and truly sleep. Worry tends to erode away any chance of sleep, which conversely leads to sleep deprivation, leading to further worry. It is an endless cycle perpetuated by the inability to take a step back, to forget the past, let the future be and take the present one moment at a time.

Warm Weather Please

I was driving to work this afternoon, and it occurred to me how much I detest the transition between winter and spring in Michigan. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait for spring to get here. I long for warmer weather.

My problem lies in the fact that looking out the window you are deceived into believing that it is a warm, beautiful day out and then you step outside… For instance, this afternoon the sky was a magnificent robin’s egg blue, there were wispy cloud strewn about. The sun was smiling down on the pavement.

By all accounts it should have been a lovely day, aside from the horrendously frigid air. Warm weather, where for art thou?